Breath
by Winkaku
Summary: Because you never know what you have until you don't.


A/N: A tribute to a bond, based on episode 29 and the fact that it was too brief to get the message across.

A little on the AU side perhaps.

Lost breath

His master had been at it for hours, lost amidst what, to him, seemed a pointless and futile quest as the man put all his strength into scaling the mountains and rivers ahead of him.

Tokagero would have sighed in frustration if he'd had the breath in his dead lungs to do so.

He had no attachments here, why was he fallowing this fool into death?

He watched dismayed as yet again Ryu fell into the raging rivers that made up this so-called Orochi devils many jaws.

"There are many spirits here, try finding a better spirit…"

Remembering those words stung him deeply, like a mocking insult, he didn't know why it did, he didn't even know why he continued to follow this man who he had once tried to murder and by far he did not know why the man would allow him to follow let alone ask him to.

Late in the night as the holy spirits of the servants of the Orochi attacked, their pale forms sharp under the moonlight, angry eyes ghastly, the lizard once again shed its tail to survive, though why it felt as if the thief had left behind a part of himself, he did not know.

He continued on as the shouts and cries of battle faded into nothingness, as the trees thickened and the world seemed to narrow into a claustrophobic midnight maze of big leaves, winding paths and overbearing conifers, their piney scent almost alien to the spirit.

He must have been wandering the twisting dirt and rock for hours; it was as if the consuming landscape itself was bent on him losing his trail and keeping him for it's own for all eternity.

His spiritual body seemed to ache with something he could not identify as he took one painful step after another, path after path after winding treacherous way as night turned to peeping dawn.

The black ribbon locks of his hair ebbed into the westward winds as if trying to push him back along his path, snake like strands billowing backward against his face as he continued ahead.

"Mommy…mommy, please carry me!"

He stopped short as if his breath had caught in his throat and watched silently, tired eyes half closed, as a little girl walked up to her mother. He pondered silently as to how any human could find their way in this death trap of a forest and briefly wondered if they might see him as he stood their watching.

They were a poor family, he could tell by the dirt on their clothes and that the child wore no shoes to protect her from the river stones, she wore brown slacks and had no shirt, her voice a grainy wisp of flower petals.

The mother was a tall and beautiful brunette who wore simple clothes and sandals to large for her small feet.

The woman leaned down to lift her child and smiled with the infant as the little girl giggled in excitement, clapping her hands and calling for the woman's attention with the haughty grace that only children could sport.

"Look at this pretty stone I found!"

There in the child's hands was a small rounded river stone that looked exactly like the rest, grey and mottled with black it held no shine and the beaten edges were still ragged, as if refusing to succumb to the rivers poundings. It was small and diminutive, its form a sharp angular and unruly cast of gravel that would tear one's feet apart if you were to step on it.

"Ah you've got yourself another one then eh?" The women chuckled with a warm mirth that kindled a sort of nostalgia in the old spirit as she lifted the drab stone into the sunlight from the westward skies.

Tokagero watched, face unreadable, as the unremarkable stone gleamed when the light hit it and beneath the grey and black marring shown patches of a shining rosy red quartz that amplified the light like a small beacon.

"You see dear, the quartz stones look just like the rest at first glance but you can always tell when you've found one because the rock refuses to crumble even in a raging river like this." With that the mother emphasized her words by tickling the giggling girl into joyful squeals the likes of which Tokagero had never heard.

"Mhmmm, it jus needs a little spit shine!"

The girl smiled as she lisped and she rubbed the little stone which was still, by all means, unremarkable, placing it into her raggedy pocket, smiling like she'd just found a lump of gold rather than a useless piece of quartz.

He wouldn't have hesitated to stone them had he the body to do so as he harrumphed and turned in the air, fuming, pent up years of painful living boiling on the back-burner and not quite understanding the reason for his sudden anger.

This was utter nonsense!

In life he'd had everything he could've ever wanted and if he didn't then he would sooner have remedied the situation and taken it, this was nothing to him, he didn't even know what this was and surely didn't care; and yet that fact stung him more.

He turned again and continued on his way just as a young man, no older than 17 by the looks of him, came running out into the clearing by the stones edge where they stood. He panted lightly and the sweat on his bushy brows showed that he had been working and running for a little while to reach the others. He had short blond hair and a clumsy gait that spoke of genetic malformations as the thief continued to study him with a prudent eye.

"Ah, Saigo, it's good to see you out of your duties for once."

"I'm sorry miss Takage samma-"

"Why the formalities hmmmm?"

The boy turned bright crimson as the child giggled in her arms at the cherry red stain across his face. His little crush seemed as obvious as the sun in the sky as he bashfully took another step forward to talk to the woman.

"You should come back home, to the orphanage, Shiza san senses a flood coming…"

The bandit stood there, dumbstruck an impotent rage building as he threw a tantrum on the inside at the one thing he could never obtain for himself, could never steal, and as he watched them go into the wooded paths that would lead them home he felt painful.

Riches, glory, women, fame, none of it seemed to matter to him anymore, as it did in life, he almost felt foolish. His grudge gone, his purpose dissolved and his skewed morals bent even further than they were before by the shock of those stupid children, by those who had given him faith; he had no idea what to do with himself.

"….home…" he thought to himself, when was the last time he'd actually had a home to go to, in life he had moved from one poverty infested den to the other every bleak night as the wars raged and the famines and plagues danced like devils on their corpses, almost as if he were searching for something amidst the chaos and death.

He was startled back into reality as the ground quaked and shook beneath his spectral form, as the rocks jumped to life over the trembling earth and the full force of the bashful mans words hit him.

"A FLOOD!"

He practically facevaulted as he turned on his intangible heels and scurried back the way he came, neither the sense of being continuously lost in the surrounding woods nor the constant abuse from the angry holy spirits of the Orochi able to penetrate his worry; he had to find Ryu!

Tokagero swore a blue streak as he ran about in all directions, unable to find his path through the twisting forest and reaching trees, getting more desperate and panicked with each second that passed by so brutally quick.

It felt like it had been days before he had finally managed to find the man, covered in cuts and bruises, sweat and dirt and gravely mud, standing strong and tall at the quaking riverbanks edge.

"Ryu! What are you doing fool! Hurry up and run!"

He screamed hoarsely as the man simply continued to stare down the flooding rivers as if in a trance, the rock and water itself seemed to roar in a violent rage and power crying out for blood.

"You won't get away with just injuries!"

It was the first time in many years that he had cared enough about another to not want them to die and he hadn't even known he'd cared at all to begin with.

"Yeah… I was just thinking…"

His voice was ragged like gravel and warm like the sun, he showed no fear as he watched the waters rise and threaten to claim him. Rock encrusted mud gummed up the many cuts and unearthly bleeding wounds he had garnered for his travels, his hair was a mess of tangled flowing onyx locks, blood seeping from a few deep cuts that the man had failed to notice. Ryu stared ahead like a man possessed, unflinching, at the mountains that contained the very rivers he had challenged.

_Stop thinking and run you idiot!_

"Even though it was such a terrifying river, why the people of ancient times didn't just leave…"

"What the hell are you talking about!?"

The flood waters roared and reared up like a thousand giant cobras as white water rapids crashed down to them and dead or not, the old thief feared it. His voice shook and his form billowed an incredulous grasping green and yet he couldn't bring himself to leave the other; the lizard couldn't sever its tail this time.

_Run damn you!_

"HEY! Hurry! We're running away!"

When had this become a we…?

He grabbed onto the mans hand, surprised to make contact, how many years had it been since the last time he had actually touched someone. He shook him hard with all the more urgency for having touched, almost begging him to leave as he ranted and raved and shouted at the man; the other just shrugged him off as he continued to stare ahead unflinching.

"No matter how many times the Yamata no Orochi raged and the river flooded… they challenged it without giving up. Because this is their home, they believed they could defeat it someday…"

Tokagero's wide eyes came to face the raging waterfalls that shook the earth and tore up the stone and mountains; that stole lives and destroyed towns; that would tear away his one kind link to the world.

_RUN  
_

"And they won…"

Why couldn't he bring himself to run…?

"Ryu…!"

It was a halfhearted yell that knew of its own futility and the final scream of a madman at the gallows.

"I am going to become a shaman! And you will be my spirit!"

Why him? Why would any creature, dead or alive, want to have him…especially the strange and outrageous man that he had so dearly wanted to sacrifice for himself, the silly child and the closet-genius of absurd ideals and pointless kindness so obscure and given only to a select few.

"I cannot disregard that thought!"

Boundless trust placed onto his shoulders for only the second time in his life, how could they do this for him of all people? A black soul born of black times that knew only pain and survival, a creature who murdered and stole with neither remorse nor compassion.

…_until that time… I will be your home…_

He had a debt to pay… to this man who had given him a purpose and life even though he didn't realize it at the time… and no babbling brook would stop him.

Determined and more alive than he had ever been in life, he gave his blackened soul and all it was worth to Ryu and they rose up to face the waves as one.

In life Tokagero could afford neither friendship nor trust, he had fought at all costs to live for the sake of his mother and he realized now that even in death he had not moved on from her sacrifice.

So caught up in his misery for her loss that he could not live for himself and in end he had sabotaged the very purpose for her death.

Perhaps he really had been searching for something as he moved from place to place and in death…perhaps he found it.

Maybe now he could move on and really live, like he had failed to do in life.

The moment the old bandits withered spirit came into real contact with Ryu's own, it was as if he had touched another soul for the first time ever, spectral eyes opening to so many things he had refused to see before.

It was like a warm summer night under the stars, laughing with friends and chasing fireflies even though you were too old for such childish joys.

The once unfeeling spirit was assaulted with wondrous sensations that he had never truly felt in far over 600 years as the walls crumbled down and true sensation washed over like warm healing balm on centuries old frozen over wounds, like cool water on screaming burns.

As he continued searching for more of that strange warmth he traversed through memory after memory unimpeded by the others mind and unable to quench his bottomless thirst for the kind cool waters that flowed there.

From the pain of an abusive alcoholic father and the mother that left him, to the day he ran away from home and began life on the streets determined to find the home he never had.

From the day he formed the Dead-Enders gang and every member he found, lost souls with no purpose, outcasts and complete strangers to whom he had shown a kindness long forgotten of by the old thief.

Tokagero realized that somewhere along the way he too must have become just like the others, apart of the gang, even though he'd tried to kill them all in his rage.

Memories continued to pass him; of cold winters spent huddled together in an abandoned apartment complex to keep warm, of working diligently with those who would let them earn money for food and clothes. Of old happenings, arbitrary and pointless but real and tangible as they were untouchable, of stab wounds from angry gangs, of police beatings and running down dark wet streets during bleak winters rains with a smile.

The memory of a gunshot wound seared through his abdomen, inflicted by callous black gloved Yakuza hands bent on destroying a young man, curled up on the ground as Ryu stood up for him and saved the boys unwanted life. The old thief cried out for the black suited bastard mans blood, swearing as a vile hate curled up in his chest for anyone and anything that would even think of hurting this man, of even touching his warmth, his… friend, the word felt unused but for once it tasted like ambrosia.

Overwhelming visions of comfort and loss, of long hot summers spent with backbreaking labor and day after day gone by, searching for their mysterious happy place like monks on a pilgrimage, of happiness and of everything he had never had and never seen or touched.

The old thief felt as if he could never get enough of the odd warmth and peace he had found there, soaking it up with every breath they shared and every heartbeat the old spirit felt trill so strongly through their body; he had found what he was searching for… a "happy place".

To say the raw power that reached out from the newly hewn and cemented bonds and epiphanies was impressive would be the understatement of the century.

Great moon-pale serpents burst forth in an awesome fury, eyes red as winter cherries, giant creatures writhing as one with eight heads and eight tails whose gigantic bodies writhed over the eight valleys they stood upon, venomous fangs reaching forth like jagged claymores. The gargantuan slithering moon miasma of huge jaws and serpents clashed into the raging waves head on with the lightning speed of angry cobras, terrible hissing and deafening fierce roars and the earth shook apart beneath them and the world cracked and bent as the two forces met. Grand gales whipped up and the rivers and lands became a hurricane of raging forces, each vying for supremacy. Ryu shook violently, the burst veins of his eyes dyeing them the same red as the serpents crimson orbs, hair whipping his face painfully and rigid form crumbling slowly apart under the stress.

The snake like demons rose as one, huge whipping white bodies writhing like angry oil, dwarfing the rivers waves as, enraged by the waters disobedience, the embodiment of the very mountains and rivers of the eight valleys and mountains, of serpents and of natures fury, took its claim over its waters and mountains and the unending tides broke apart with unnerving ease.

The sheer power cut a bleeding swath through the waves as the enormous serpents bellowed and receded, the mighty creatures too strong and fierce for Ryu to hold together and control with what strength he still had in him as the rage tore his body apart.

Eyes unfocused yet locked straight ahead, he continued in his unwavering will to stare down the waters and serpents as if staring into the eyes of death as his body quickly gave way beneath him.

Tokagero roared into the serpents for his folly, if the thief hadn't left Ryu to fend for himself against the orochi's many bloodthirsty servants, he may have had the strength to persevere under the fury of this raging nature. Exhausted and mana spent, he collapsed into the breakwaters with a tired scream and a sickening snap as the snakes fizzled out like pale white fire and the final waves came crashing down with a terrifying roar and the violent hurricane blew away, fading into the serendipity that was the calm after the storm.

Swimming, for a ghost, was an odd experience; one felt it was necessary to hold their breath only then to realize that they had no breath to hold as they tumbled with no current behind them, the world a pitch-blackness reminiscent of being enveloped by a dark and muddy abyss.

The force of the sudden detachment from Ryu's body had flung him back to roll with the water, his ghostly form unaffected by the supreme pull of the angry tamed waves or the thunderous force of crushing water and stone yet just as quickly as the onslaught began it was over and the black world subsided.

He felt the urge to gasp for breath as he found himself splattered along the wet rocky riverbanks, the fear and pain of death twice over evident in his trembling form.

Had he really done all that? That POWER was? Had they-

"RYU!…RYU!"

The old thief was all but gasping, shell-shocked and stricken, the instinct to live, to exist driving him into a disturbing mockery of the "normalcy" that the living took for granted, of unneeded breathing that drew no air and trembling under a non-existent cold while shaking off water that never clung to ones form and of trying to regain ones footing when you never really walked.

"RYU SAN!"

The honorifics tasted bittersweet and sour on his tongue, never having found a person to address them by and really mean it.

There by the rocky shore lay a battered and bloody cut Ryu, bokuto broken and lost in that final waves fury and his left arm bent backward by the force needed to hold the raging serpents and waters at bay.

Tokagero ran up to him, flaming form puffing out green embers with little spasms of cold as he leant down over the spent mans unconscious form, body beaten bloody by the rivers assault. Small rivulets of cool river water still clung to his soaked body, blood seeped from his broken left arm, his eyes half closed in a perverted sense of calm. The grey rock cut free by waves and wind and writhing bodies bit into his flesh without remorse, deep wounds wound their way about his body and a small trickle of crimson seeped down his forehead with foreboding freedom. Tokagero remembered his days alive, he knew a head injury was a serious thing, it meant death most often and survival was a matter of luck, at times even then a mans mind would be lost to it, taken by the blow never to return. If the old bandit were still alive, this would be the first corpse to ever make his blood run cold, not even as a child who murdered to live, had he ever been abhorred by death, death was just another gruesome fact of survival, the end game.

"RYU!"

He wasn't breathing.

In that instant the old spirit forgot that he was dead, he forgot himself and the pain of his solitary life that just didn't seem to matter to him anymore. Completely disregarding the fact that he was bereft of a body and therefore unable to give the man breath he pounded on Ryu's still chest with all the power of a ghost against a shaman.

Fear coiled into his blackened heart as he did his best to restore his only friend to health, the mans once tanned peach skin was ice cold and fast losing color as the spirit continued to try to revive him. The heartbeat he had shared was a deafening silence and the odd stillness of the mans unmoving chest made the spirit quiver with a pain centuries old, the pain of when he had been given his mothers flesh, of when he had first come back into true existence during his contact with Yoh and of when a strange haired man with an even stranger mind had offered him a home. The pain had been condensed perverted and flung into his face unavoidable even in his refusal to see it, just as he had been refusing himself and everything around him for so many years, too long he had been striving only to live, his very drive undermining its purpose; only to have it ripped out from under him when he finally had it!

"**RYU!**"

It had felt like an eternity as he pounded on the others cold chest in desperation to expel the invading water, hands almost passing through at times.

The mans unconscious form slowly began to take on a hazy shimmer, like heat waves under a smoky sun and to Tokegero's abhorrence his exhausted friends soul was beginning to waver from its beaten body.

He watched in fascinated horror as sinew strands of muddy white and clear grey played into one another like living rivers, weaving through his spectral hands and bleeding out between his fingers as he struggled to hold it in, as if his chest were a profusely bleeding wound. It was cool to the touch where it felt best to be cool and warm where it felt best to be warm, an odd and wondrous caress of energy, a call to action and a sigh to rest, it was at once the most beautiful and terrible thing the spirit had ever laid eyes on.

Flashes of the memories he had seen within Ryu's mind overtook him; joy, sadness, pain and the spectacular ever-growing cool/warmth that he had barely come to know and had only once touched.

The old thief was in tears, how could he let this happen!

The one creature that had actually taken him in was dieing by his own negligent hands, it was like watching his mother die all over again as the cool/warmth he had once reveled in turned into a perverse congealing cold.

Uncomprehending of his emotions and burning with an unrequited passion he had suffered through life and death without ever touching, his spectral form trembled and spiritual flames billowed a brilliant emerald into the mid morning air.

_**RYU!**_

With a tortured yell of defiance that echoed down all the rivers and valleys of the Orochi, shattered the many river temples ornamental glass paned windows, burned wards and shook the senses of any spiritually inclined being for miles; he brought his hands down hard, double fisted, onto the other mans motionless chest in a final agonized blow as the long-held tears clotted and gummed up his eyes.

Ryu's unfocused and open eyes widened and his body convulsed with a heavy upward jerk as, back arched, he spewed out the offending fluids from his lungs in deep hacking coughs.

The old thief's spirit quickly and shakily turned the man onto his side with the numb awareness of an adrenaline sapped crash and pounded his back, reveling in each of his friends gagging coughs and wheezing breaths.

He laughed elatedly as Ryu vomited up small rivers of water and gasped for air, filling his lungs with precious oxygen, body heaving relentlessly through overwhelming exhaustion.

Soon though, his manic laughter of a creature brought back from the brink of hell itself, faded into tiny indignant sobs as he screwed his hands into his friend's overcoat, the still only half conscious man not fully understanding of what had transpired yet.

All Ryu really knew was that his lungs hurt and his body felt like he'd been through that very hell and back trapped in a washing machine with wool shoved up his ears and as he stared up into the clear blue sky, slowly losing consciousness again but his breathing blessedly strong, he cursed.

"…f-fuck…did-did I get sh-shot agn…?"

His voice was a hoarse slur like a slippery stone blades edge and talking seemed merely to bring out an intense burning pain in his chest that only sent him back into painful dry heaves and hacking fits.

The spotted blackness was slowly creeping along the edges of his vision, fettering away his pain within the deepest recesses of his mind as he relaxed gratefully into the others ghostly grasping hands.

The sobbing at the edge of his perception slowly degenerated into shallow screams of hurt as all the pent up pain of the green spirits lonely life and death spilled out onto Ryu's soaked chest and irreparably stained clothes. The pain of unrequited love, of a long dead mother, of sacrifice and loss and of realization, life and death and 600 years of begrudged lingering; all spilling out as if violently torn out from the spirits cold, blackened innards.

He didn't quite know what was going on but he went with his instincts just as he always did and brought the hazy figure up into a weak embrace, so much like a mother coddling a child's nightmares away. Just as Ryu had done for the people he had lived his life with, the refuse and the street rats and the rejected so-called weaklings, he unquestioningly put forward a warm hand. Like he had done for MP, one of the first members of the Dead-Enders gang, who had lost his family to the Yakuza, like he had done for Rain-Coat the winter runaway and K-Mart the drop-out, just as he had done for any of his "family" who had called for him on cold nights in abandoned buildings.

The old thief fell wide eyed into the others arms, shocked by the kind gesture, as he had never had the luxury to do so before and he screamed and screamed, grasping into the mans sopping wet chest, clutching at him with all his remaining strength as if the man would slip through his fingers and disappear if he were to let go and as Ryu, exhausted by his endeavors, lost consciousness and fell into the deep sleep of unconsciousness; he screamed.

It would be a few hours before Ryu would finally awaken, the sun would have fully risen and the choir of robins will have died down into nothingness. The waters were now calm and cool as sparrows flitted about and clouds drifted like lazy cotton in a light blue sky under a warm sun.

He lie there, warm under the suns rays, broken arm throbbing for his scattered attention as the thick inky blackness receded from the edges of his vision. Tokagero's hushed non-words seemed as if to come to him from beneath layers of stuffy wool and his head pounded dully as he drunkenly felt at the blood on the top of his forehead with numb yet cautious hands.

"…mmmm… what happened…?"

He tried to lift himself, only to realize the mistake in it as the world quickly spun on its axis and the muzzy colors blended together in a sick puddle and so he opted to lie back down in the suns warmth.

Blinking a few times he turned his head to stare at the silent greenish spirit beside him with a foolhardy survivors smile, the emerald lizard sentry looked at him with tired eyes and a weak smile, unwilling to move from his side and completely unable to form words.

Whatever had happened while he was out of it had changed the thief immensely, it was hard to see the change but Ryu had a knack for finding rather beautiful quartz stones on city streets. It was in his kind silence, in his swift and sure movements and in his quiet whispered apologies as he aided Ryu in raising himself with only one arm. It was in the way the old bandit stared at the backwards and broken appendage that drizzled blood under stress and the deep respect within aged obsidian eyes, now so much wiser and with a hint of warmth that had never been there before.

Yes, he could see the change clearly and though his muddled brain could find no reasons for it he had foggily decided that it was a good thing if it made the old spirit happy enough to smile every once in a while.

The old bastard deserved to smile after all he'd been through.


End file.
